The award recognizes individuals who have best demonstrated leadership in promoting or implementing significant synergies between the clinical engineering and information technology professions. Award recipients also must be members in good standing of both organizations. Nominees for the award are honored for professional or technical contributions to the professions, such as research, development of a new process or product, a paper of significance, and “trailblazing’ work in a new application of clinical engineering and IT.

“The American College of Clinical Engineering is very proud to support the selection of Dr. Frisch for this award. His work is an excellent model for the new direction that practitioners of clinical engineering need to take as more and more of the technologies we work with incorporate computer-based functionality and integrate with health IT systems. Dr. Frisch is to be commended for his forward-thinking leadership in our profession,” says Jim Keller, President of ACCE.

Dr. Frisch has over 30 years of professional experience and contributions to the field; and is a long-standing of member of HIMSS & ACCE. He has educated clinical staff, administration and hospital thought leaders about diverse technologies and the synergies required to develop, deploy and manage complex systems in the healthcare setting.

As a faculty member and Chief of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Medical Physics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and a visiting professor at Binghamton University, Dr. Frisch is also a researcher. One of his research interests has been the transition of clinical devices from stand-alone to networked systems sharing and distributing information between clinical applications and devices. He has extensively researched how these devices have also moved to expand their functionality to use wireless technologies (WiFi, etc.) as medium for conveying this critical information. As these clinical devices and systems transition between the boundaries of engineering and information technology, it becomes critical for the industry to develop a strong synergy between information technologies and biomedical / clinical engineering.

To further demonstrate this complex interaction, Frisch designed the Intelligent Hospital™ Pavilion, an interactive exhibit first introduced at HIMSS11.This addition to the exhibit floor has helpedraise awareness of, and educated the healthcare industry on, the many applications of RFID and RTLS technologies integrated within clinical scenarios, including the required synergy between information technologies and biomedical/clinical engineering.

“The connection and integration between clinical engineering and information technology come to the forefront with this joint ACCE-HIMSS award, as indicated by the accomplishments of this year’s recipient Paul H. Frisch, PhD, FHIMSS. All of us at HIMSS congratulate Dr. Frisch for his ongoing contributions to the Society, and specifically, to HIMSS13, where he will speak at the Clinical Engineering & IT Symposium and has already provided his expertise for one of our large, interactive exhibits,” says H. Stephen Lieber, CAE, HIMSS President & CEO.

About ACCE

Founded in 1990, the American College of Clinical Engineering (ACCE) is committed to enhancing the profession of clinical engineering. With members in the United States and abroad, the ACCE is the only internationally recognized professional society for clinical engineers.

About HIMSS HIMSS is a cause-based, not-for-profit organization exclusively focused on providing global leadership for the optimal use of information technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of health and healthcare. Founded 52 years ago, HIMSS and its related organizations are headquartered in Chicago with additional offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. HIMSS represents more than 52,000 individual members, of which more than two thirds work in healthcare provider, governmental and not-for-profit organizations. HIMSS also includes over 600 corporate members and more than 225 not-for-profit partner organizations that share our mission of transforming healthcare through the best use of information technology and management systems. HIMSS frames and leads healthcare practices and public policy through its content expertise, professional development, research initiatives, and media vehicles designed to promote information and management systems’ contributions to improving the quality, safety, access, and cost-effectiveness of patient care. To learn more about HIMSS and to find out how to join us and our members in advancing our cause, please visit our website at www.himss.org.

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 10 blogs containing over 8000 articles with John having written over 4000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 16 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and LinkedIn.